


bloody and raw but i swear it is sweet

by swimthewholeriogrande



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Attempted Sexual Assault, BAMF Rosa Diaz, Canon Compliant, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Isolation, Prison, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-11-04 00:22:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17887967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swimthewholeriogrande/pseuds/swimthewholeriogrande
Summary: Rosa never begs. Not once.





	bloody and raw but i swear it is sweet

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to try some of Rosa's perspective on prison, hope you guys enjoy!  
> Title from Angel of Small Death by Hozier

When they say _guilty!_ , Rosa doesn't say anything. 

Jake is muttering to himself, posture tight and taut, but Rosa suddenly finds herself in her seat. Any breath rushes out of her; for a moment she lets herself crumple, folding at the waist, blind and deaf to any noise around her - just one moment of peace. One more, the last one, now that her life has up-ended with that one single world. 

Then she straightens up, clears her throat and slides on the most neutral expression she can muster. Rosa knows that every twitch, every shiver, every movement from now on will have to be carefully calculated. She has to be the toughest thing anyone has ever seen. Jake has clearly not gotten this memo, because she can hear him heaving beside her, but hey, Jake has Amy. He has his mom and Holt and Charles and countless others. 

Rosa has no one. Her family are distant and not even here today; Pimento is probably halfway to Rio by now, and even if he was here, he's as bad as giving comfort as she is. No, Rosa knows that it's up to her now to take care of herself. That's one thing she knows how to do. 

She knows how to get out of handcuffs too, but she still lets the bailiff cuff her. There's no use fighting it, not when the world is so surreal around her she feels like she's gonna pass out. When the cop starts to walk them both out, as the 99 call out words that Rosa can't even understand, she has to swallow bile; the air is thick and hot and heavy. 

They get separated as they're taken to vans to be transported. Rosa looks at Jake and knows that she'll never see him again; he's panicking, everything she feels inside thrown on his outsides like a projector screen, and his eyes are huge and wet. He trembles in the exact way that she wants to. 

"Jake," she starts, unsure of what she's actually going to say next, but then they get tugged to different vehicles and she's lost him, her best friend. So now it's just Rosa, for definite. 

The van is clearly made for multiple prisoners, but she's the only one there, so it rattles emptily around her. One of her wrists is cuffed to the arm of the seat and the two guards sit up front with the driver. Rosa closes her eyes and begins to try and steel herself; she'll be processed tonight, and probably put in general population tomorrow - unless they separate her from the rest of the inmates. _They're gonna tear me apart,_ she thinks, and then, _let them try._

She's Rosa goddamn Diaz - if she can make a whole precinct of cops intimidated by her, she can handle other inmates. She has to. Rosa finally opens her eyes, stares at the white lines on the road flashing past, slipping away, and begins the careful process of shutting herself down. 

-

Rosa's never been good at making friends. 

This has never been more evident to her than right now - scrambling on the floor in the rec room, half-blind with someone else's blood in her eyes, and a guard's knee in her back. The other woman, her competitor, is in a similar position, if a little worse off. Rosa bares her teeth, feeling a hollow sense of victory; this, she knows how to do. Even if every other aspect of prison is foreign and alien and confusing, she knows how to fight. 

"Fucking hell, inmate," the guard pants, hauling her up. "Been a month and you're more trouble than you're worth." 

Rosa makes a half-hearted attempt to break free; there's a deep ache in her rib, definitely cracked at least. She doesn't deign the young man with a response, just tries for one last wriggle out of the zipties, and then relents. She's exhausted. 

She's unsurprised and even a little relieved when she's brought to solitary again. At least now she can sleep without her inane cellmate's snoring, and do her yoga without leering guards. Rosa likes to be alone, is used to it. That's a familiar part of prison too. 

She thinks it's supposed to be visiting day as they lock the door behind her, leaving her in that drab little room. Amy had said she was going to come, but Rosa has remembered that too late, so she just collapses on the cot, bone-deep pain and all, and sleeps. 

-

"Girl, you do _not_ look good." 

Rosa almost smiles. Gina is at least always honest with her, even now. "No shit." she replies gruffly. "How's Enigma?"

"The Enigma," Gina correct, "is good. As is her beautiful baby mama."

Now Rosa does smile. Gina has showed her a picture already and damn, that is a cool kid; she already has a tiny fluffy mohawk; Rosa will never get to meet her. "M'glad." She shifts in the plastic seat, feeling a guard's eyes burning into the back of her head. She's a well-known troublemaker by now. 

Gina's perfect face flickers suddenly. She leans in like she's gonna take Rosa's hands, like she has a million time before - she's one of the only people Rosa will allow to touch her so casually - but due to Rosa being deemed _aggressive_ by the prison, there's a pane of thick, scratches plastic between them. "Rosa," she says, oddly soft, "I really...it sucks. This sucks."

Rosa knows that is Gina-talk for a sentiment of regret, of despondency, of I-wish-this-had-not-happened-to-you. She smiles tightly and wishes Gina hadn't said anything, because actual emotions make it harder to not feel anything. And she's not allowed feel things.

"Yeah." she replies dully. "How is everyone?"

"Busy, busy, busy. Working all the time to free your cute ass."

"Jake?"

Gina's face flickers again. "You know Jake," she scoffs, but it's halfhearted, and she doesn't elaborate. Rosa takes it to mean not good. She wonders if Jake ever asks about her.

When Gina leaves, Rosa knows the guard is still staring at her. She stands up slowly; she's pretty sure she knows what's coming. That means she's ready, at least, so that the second the guard touches her ass she breaks three of his fingers and throws him into the plastic window. 

Then, before ten guards come bursting in and before the perv she knocked out wakes up, Rosa sits beside the overturned chair, rests her head in her hands, and allows herself a single moment alone to feel.

-

Things are better in solitary.

Solitary means Rosa doesn't have to fight anyone to stay alive, and her body is so tired of fighting. The nurses at the infirmary don't give a shit about hairline fractures in her knuckles, or any bruising that doesn't make her piss blood - they'll fix the big stuff, and then Rosa is left with the rest. She's had enough of the rest.

But another way to look at solitary, one she only sees late at night, is as a cage - a cage she can't ever get out of, won't ever get out of. It doesn't help that she gets no visiting time; her past life and everyone in it are becoming too far away to love or even remember. Even then Rosa knows there are cameras on her. She can't fall apart how she needs to.

So beneath the sheet she tears the mattress to minute shreds, only the slight twitches of her fingers giving away the yawning hysteria opening like a gash inside of her. Rosa destroys as much as she can before she destroys what's inside; she picks threads out from beneath her nails until they bleed.

-

It's Gina who picks her up when she's exonerated. She drives like a maniac, which Rosa had forgotten, so she spends the ride clinging white-knuckled to the edges of her seat.

"You'll be back on your bike in no time." Gina tells her brightly, weaving in and out of traffic. The Enigma gurgles happily at the motion from the backseat. "If you need it like, hotwired or anything, I know a guy."

Rosa stretches her arm into the back and lets the baby latch onto her finger. She grunts in response, not really having a response, but needing desperately for Gina to keep talking.

Gina, luckily, can talk for hours about just about anything. Rosa listens to the familiar voice go on and on, soothed by the first kind words in months, and watches the view out the window blur as they speed back to Brooklyn.


End file.
